My Financial Report

I have a few bad habits in spending…

I guess if you are going to write about money, you at some time have to be transparent with your finances. So, as I was sitting down and doing my taxes, I decided to look at what my net worth is and where is it all located. I haven’t done this is in a few years mainly because I don’t care because I want to retire at 52 from teaching, a job in which I love doing and isn’t seen as a burden, and it gives me stress to look at my investments on a monthly basis. I usually look over my accounts a little during the summer months in which I get 9 weeks off!! Its a lifestyle thing that I can’t give up. But, over all I don’t keep a running tally of my net worth because at 52 I get a TRS pension based on my top 5 pay years averaged out. So, the reality of my situation is that my net worth doesn’t matter because I’m set for now thanks to teacher retirement. I only save because I’m not that consumeristic, and I plan as if I have no retirement from TRS. I’m paranoid I guess.

Well, I’m not sure what to say because I am 36, with only my mortgage left on my debt, and I plan to work at this point for another 16 years. I am putting about $3500 a month into the mortgage right now, maxing out my IRA, forced to contribute to my TRS account(yeah pension), and putting $4800 into the kids college yearly. My wife’s IRA is on hold for now, because of the mortgage payoff plan, and the 403b is also on hold too. After the house is paid off, and it should keep going up in value due to the land values alone (we live on acreage), we will have the $3500 a month to invest and save for our next big venture of adding a few rental properties to our income stream. This is the long range plan and we know with kids things could go wrong, but having a plan is better then running around spending freely.

So again, these are my numbers after working as a teacher for 12 years, with a single income (my wife just started teaching this year), and we have a family with 3 kids. We feel pretty normal in every way except we budget a lot. I feel these numbers are pretty good for my point in life, but as a coach and a competitor, I know I could be doing much better. I try to not go extreme, by living in a van with no possessions, although I dream of it all the time (if only I was single). I also have some vices such as $1.95 for donuts each week and $5000 a year on vacations!! I do have weaknesses and a life, but everything is budgeted in and we stick to the budget as a couple. I’m not sure I want to keep doing my numbers every quarter or anything like that, but maybe once a year around tax time is alright. So, for now enjoy and hopefully all the accounts keep going up with our great market situation. I hope to inspire more of you to just keep saving and keep the bills low.

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2 Comments

Thanks for writing your blog! We live an hour and a half from San Antonio. I was curious how you will get your pension at 52. I thought the earliest was 55? Also, Texas pensions are not indexed to inflation. Do you have a plan to compensate for that? I admire that you plan to live on your pension. If my husband makes $80k for five years then our pension will be $30k. He didn’t start teaching till his mid 30s so ours wont be as much as yours.

I’m grandfathered into the old retirement plan. It’s called the rule of 80. When my age and years worked equal 80 I can get full TRS retirement. At age 52 I’ll have 28 years worked and it’s estimated to get me around $3,478 a month at my current salary. I’m sure my salary will go up over the next 14 years, so it should be more. I also max out my Roth IRA for inflation, put $500 a month in a crappy 403b plan, and my wife teaches and can get her pension at age 65, and she maxes out a Roth IRA as well. If we keep on our current frugal path we should have all our bills paid by my pension and the rest is gravy cash. Our current bills once we get our kids out of the house in 9 more years are around $2500-$2800 a month with a mortgage. Our mortgage should be gone in 6 more years, so I feel great with plan unless the rule of 80 changes for some reason. Thanks for reading!!